Perhaps the San Diego State football hasn't taken a step forward, but it's on the verge of deepening its footprint.

Maybe 2013 has been a disappointing season for the Aztecs, but that's only because of how they've catapulted expectations.

Saturday night, SDSU's senior class will play its final home game when it takes on Boise State at Qualcomm Stadium, where a win would all but ensure a fourth straight bowl appearance for the program. Sure, the Aztecs have had plenty of missed opportunities -- but this here is an unprecedented one.

"It just shows that the program is turned around," said senior receiver Colin Lockett. "It was real rough when we first got here."

The program being "turned around" might be a stretch, but it's vastly improved from four years ago -- when it was turned upside down. The season before Lockett and his 17 senior teammates took the field, SDSU finished 4-8. The season before that, it was 2-10.

There hadn't been a winning record since 1998, when the Aztecs went 7-5 in their final year in the Western Athletic Conference. So for a class to go 4-for-4 in regards to bowl appearances? That's Extreme Makeover, Gridiron Edition.

"These 18 seniors, when you look at it, they have really changed the program 360 degrees," said SDSU assistant coach Jeff Horton, probably overshooting that number by 180 degrees, but we know what he meant. "When they came in, football was almost something that just an afterthought. Now, people know about it across the country."

Some of what that national audience knows is the Aztecs getting obliterated by Ohio State in Columbus earlier this year, or falling by 17 points to BYU in last year's Poinsettia Bowl, or watching Fresno State block a field goal for first place last month.

But they may be equally familiar with last year's upset of Boise State, when SDSU became just the second team to beat the Broncos on the road in 79 tries -- or the five wins decided in the fourth quarter this year.

For the adrenaline junkie recovering from his recent tidal-wave injury, watching the 2013 Aztecs (6-4, 5-1 in conference) has been the perfect substitute for thrills. And that resilience you see week in and week out -- that's the same mentality this year's senior class brought when they first arrived.

"When we got here, we were still trying to figure out what winning was," said senior defensive back Eric Pinkins, whose team started the year 0-3. "But we would just keep progressing and progressing and progressing. It means a lot. It's miraculous that we were able to keep the program up."

That progression led to a 9-4 record in Brady Hoke's final year as coach, an 8-5 mark in Rocky Long's first year, and a 9-4 record last year in which the Aztecs tied for the Mountain West title.

It also has led to SDSU joining Stanford as the only team in California to become bowl eligible in each of the past four years.